V. I. Lenin

The Trade Unions, The Present Situation

And Trotsky’s 

      Mistakes[1]

Speech Delivered At A Joint Meeting Of Communist
      Delegates To The Eighth Congress Of Soviets, Communist Members Of
      The All-Russia Central Council Of Trade Unions And Communist
      Members Of The Moscow City Council Of Trade Unions
      December 30, 1920

Delivered:30 December, 1920First Published:Published in pamphlet form in 1921;Published according to the pamphlet text collated with the verbatim report edited by Lenin.Source:Lenin’sCollected Works, 1st English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965,Volume 32, pages 19-42Translated:Yuri SdobnikovTranscription\HTML Markup:David Walters&R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of theGNU Free Documentation License

Comrades, I must first of all apologise for
    departing from the rules of procedure, for anyone wishing to take
    part in the debate should have heard the report, the second report
    and the speeches. I am so unwell, unfortunately, that I have been
    unable to do this. But I was able yesterday to read the principal
    printed documents and to prepare my remarks. This departure from
    the rules will naturally cause you some inconvenience; not having
    heard the other speeches, I may go over old ground and leave out
    what should be dealt with. But I had no choice.

My principal material is Comrade Trotsky ’s pamphlet,The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions. When I compare it
    with the theses he submitted to the Central Committee, and go over
    it very carefully, I am amazed at the number of theoretical
    mistakes and glaring blunders it contains. How could anyone
    starting a big Party discussion on this question produce such a
    sorry excuse for a carefully thought out statement? Let me go over
    the main points which, I think, contain the original fundamental
    theoretical errors.

Trade unions are not just historically necessary; they are
    historically inevitable as an organisation of the industrial
    proletariat, and, under the dictatorship of the proletariat,
    embrace nearly the whole of it. This is basic, but Comrade Trotsky
    keeps forgetting it; he neither appreciates it nor makes it his
    point of departure, all this while dealing With “The Role
    and Tasks of the Trade Unions”, a subject of infinite
    compass.

It follows from what I have said that the trade unions have an
    extremely important part to play at every step of the dictatorship
    of the proletariat. But what is their part? I find that it is a
    most unusual one, as soon as I delve into this question, which is
    one of the most fundamental theoretically. On the one hand, the
    trade unions, which take in all industrial workers, are an
    organisation of the ruling, dominant, governing class, which has
    now set up a dictatorship and is exercising coercion through the
    state. But it is not a state organisation; nor is it one designed
    for coercion, but for education. It is an organisation designed to
    draw in and to train; it is, in fact, a school: a school of
    administration, a school of economic management, a school of
    communism. It is a very unusual type of school, because there are
    no teachers or pupils; this is an extremely unusual combination of
    what has necessarily come down to us from capitalism, and what
    comes from the ranks of the advanced revolutionary detachments,
    which you might call the revolutionary vanguard of the
    proletariat. To talk about the role of the trade unions without
    taking these truths into account is to fall straight into a number
    of errors.

Within the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the
    trade unions stand, if I may say so, between the Party and the
    government. In the transition to socialism the dictatorship of the
    proletariat is inevitable, but it is not exercised by an
    organisation which takes in all industrial workers. Why not? The
    answer is given in the theses of the Second Congress of the
    Communist International on the role of political parties in
    general. I will not go into this here. What happens is that the
    Party, shall we say, absorbs the vanguard of the proletariat, and
    this vanguard exercises the dictatorship of the proletariat. The
    dictatorship cannot be exercised or the functions of government
    performed without a foundation such as the trade unions. These
    functions, however, have to be performed through the medium of
    special institutions which are also of a new type, namely, the
    Soviets. What are the practical conclusions to be drawn from this
    peculiar situation? They are, on the one hand, that the trade
    unions are a link between the vanguard and the masses, and by
    their daily work bring conviction to the masses, the masses of the
    class which alone is capable of taking us from capitalism to
    communism. On the other hand, the trade unions are a
    “reservoir” of the state power. This is what the trade
    unions are in the period of transition from capitalism to
    communism. In general, this transition cannot be achieved without
    the leadership of that class which is the only class capitalism
    has trained for large-scale production and which alone is divorced
    from the interests of the petty proprietor. But the dictatorship
    of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation
    embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist
    countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward)
    the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted
    in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation
    taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise
    proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard
    that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole
    is like an arrangement of cogwheels. Such is the basic mechanism
    of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and of the essentials of
    transition from capitalism to communism. From this alone it is
    evident that there is something fundamentally wrong in principle
    when Comrade Trotsky points, in his first thesis, to
    “ideological confusion”, and speaks of a crisis as
    existing specifically and particularly in the trade unions. If we
    are to speak of a crisis, we can do so only after analysing the
    political situation. It is Trotsky who is in “ideological
    confusion”, because in this key question of the trade
    unions’ role, from the standpoint of transition from
    capitalism to communism, he has lost sight of the fact that we
    have here a complex arrangement of cogwheels which cannot be a
    simple one; for the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be
    exercised by a mass proletarian organisation. It cannot work
    without a number of “transmission belts” running from
    the vanguard to the mass of the advanced class, and from the
    latter to the mass of the working people. In Russia, this mass is
    a peasant one. There is no such mass anywhere else, but even in
    the most advanced countries there is a non-proletarian, or a not
    entirely proletarian, mass. That is in itself enough to produce
    ideological confusion. But it’s no use Trotsky’s
    pinning it on others.

When I consider the role of the trade unions in production,
    find that Trotsky ’s basic mistake lies in his always
    dealing with it “in principle “, as a matter of
    “general principle”. All his theses are based on
    “general principle”, an approach which is in itself
    fundamentally wrong, quite apart from the fact that the Ninth
    Party Congress said enough and more than enough about the trade
    unions’ role in production,[2]and quite apart from
    the fact that in his own theses Trotsky quotes the perfectly clear
    statements of Lozovsky and Tomsky, who were to be his
    “whipping boys” and an excuse for an exercise in
    polemics. It turns out that there is, after all, no clash of
    principle, and the choice of Tomsky and Lozovsky, who wrote what
    Trotsky himself quotes, was an unfortunate one indeed. However
    hard we may look, we shall not find here any serious divergence of
    principle. In general, Comrade Trotsky’s great mistake, his
    mistake of principle, lies in the fact that by raising the
    question of “principle” at this time he is dragging
    back the Party and the Soviet power. We have, thank heaven, done
    with principles and have gone on to practical business. We chatted
    about principles—rather more than we should have—at
    the Smolny. Today, three years later, we have decrees on all
    points of the production problem, and on many of its components;
    but such is the sad fate of our decrees: they are signed, and then
    we ourselves forget about them and fail to carry them
    out. Meanwhile, arguments about principles and differences of
    principle are invented. I shall later on quote a decree dealing
    with the trade unions’ role in production, a decree all of
    us, including myself, I confess, have forgotten.

The actual differences, apart from those I have listed, really
    have nothing to do with general principles. I have had to
    enumerate my “differences” with Comrade Trotsky
    because, with such a broad theme as “The Role and Tasks of
    the Trade Unions”, he has, I am quite sure, made a number of
    mistakes bearing on the very essence of the dictatorship of the
    proletariat. But, this apart, one may well ask, why is it that we
    cannot work together, as we so badly need to do? It is because of
    our differentapproachto the mass, the different way of
    winning it over andkeeping in touchwith it. That is the
    whole point. And this makes the trade union a very peculiar
    institution, which is set up under capitalism, which inevitably
    exists in the transition from capitalism to communism, and whose
    future is a question mark. The time when the trade unions are
    actually called into question is a long way off: it will be up to
    our grandchildren to discuss that. What matters now is how to
    approach the mass, to establish contact with it and win it over,
    and how to get the intricate transmission system working (how to
    run the dictatorship of the proletariat). Note that when I speak
    oI the intricate transmission system I do not mean the machinery
    of the Soviets. What it may have in the way of intricacy of
    transmission comes under a special head. I have only been
    considering, in principle and in the abstract, class relations in
    capitalist society, which consists of a proletariat, a
    non-proletarian mass of working people, a petty bourgeoisie and a
    bourgeoisie. This alone yields an extremely complicated
    transmission system owing to what has been created by capitalism,
    quite apart from any red-tape in the Soviet administrative
    machinery. And that is the main point to be considered in
    analysing the difficulties of the trade unions’
    “task”. Let me say this again: the actual differences
    do not lie where Comrade Trotsky sees them but in the question of
    how to approach the mass, win it over, and keep in touch with
    it. I must say that had we made a detailed, even if small-scale,
    study of our own experience and practices, we should have managed
    to avoid the hundreds of quite unnecessary
    “differences” and errors of principle in which Comrade
    Trotsky’s pamphlet abounds. Some of his theses, for
    instance, polemicise against “Soviet
    trade-unionism”. As if we hadn’t enough trouble
    already, a new bogey has been invented. Who do you think it is?
    Comrade Ryazanov, of all people. I have known him for twenty odd
    years. You have known him less than that, but equally as well by
    his work. You are very well aware that assessing slogans is not
    one of his virtues, which he undoubtedly has. Shall we then
    produce theses to show that “Soviet trade-unionism” is
    just something that Comrade Ryazanov happened to say with little
    relevance? Is that being serious? If it is, we shall end up with
    having “Soviet trade unionism”, “Soviet
    anti-peace-signing”, and what not!

      A Soviet “ism” could be invented on every single
      point. (Ryazanov: “Soviet anti-Brestism.”)
      Exactly, “Soviet anti Brestism”.

While betraying this lack of thoughtfulness, Comrade Trotsky
      falls into error himself. He seems to say that in a workers’
      state it is not the business of the trade unions to stand up for
      the material and spiritual interests of the working class. That is
      a mistake. Comrade Trotsky speaks of a “workers’
      state”. May I say that this is an abstraction. It was
      natural for us to write about a workers’ state in 1917; but
      it is now a patent error to say: “Since this is a
      workers’ state without any bourgeoisie, against whom then is
      the working class to be protected, and for what purpose?”
      The whole point is that it is not quite a workers’
      state. That is where Comrade Trotsky makes one of his main
      mistakes. We have got down from general principles to practical
      discussion and decrees, and here we are being dragged back and
      prevented from tackling the business at hand. This will not
      do. For one thing, ours is not actually a workers’ state but
      a workers’ and peasants’ state. And a lot depends on
      that. (Bukharin: “What kind of state? A
      workers’ and peasants’ state?”) Comrade Bukharin
      back there may well shout “What kind of state? A
      workers’ and peasants’ state?” I shall not stop
      to answer him. Anyone who has a mind to should recall the recent
      Congress of Soviets,[3]and that will be answer enough.

But that is not all. Our Party Programme—a document which
      the author of theABC of Communismknows very
      well—shows that ours is a workers’ statewith a
      bureacratic twist to it. We have had to mark it with this
      dismal, shall I say, tag. There you have the reality of the
      transition. Well, is it right to say that in a state that has
      taken this shape in practice the trade unions have nothing to
      protect, or that we can do without them in protecting the
      material and spiritual interests of the massively organised
      proletariat?  No, this reasoning is theoretically quite
      wrong. It takes us into the sphere of abstraction or an ideal we
      shall achieve in 15 or 20 years’ time, and I am not so
      sure that we shall have achieved it even by then. What we
      actually have before us is a reality of which we have a good
      deal of knowledge, provided, that is, we keep our heads, and do
      not let ourselves be carried awav by intellectualist talk or
      abstract reasoning, or by what may appear to be
      “theory” but is in fact error and misapprehension of
      the peculiarities of transition. We now have a state under which
      it is the business of the massively organised proletariat to
      protect itself, while we, for our part, must use these
      workers’ organisations to protect the workers from their
      state, and to get them to protect our state. Both forms of
      protection are achieved through the peculiar interweaving of our
      state measures and our agreeing or “coalescing” with
      our trade unions.

I shall have more to say about this coalescing later on. But
    the word itself shows that it is a mistake to conjure up an enemy
    in the shape of “Soviet trade-unionism”, for
    “coalescing” implies the existence ofdistinctthings thathave yet to becoalesced:
    “coalescing” implies the need to be able to use
    measures of the state power to protect the material and spiritual
    interests of the massively organised proletariatfromthat very same state power. When the coalescing has producedcoalescenceandintegration, we shall meet in
    congress for a business-like discussion of actual experience,
    instead of “disagreements” on principle or theoretical
    reasoning in the abstract. There is an equally lame attempt to
    find differences of principle with Comrades Tomsky and Lozovsky,
    whom Comrade Trotsky treats as trade union
    “bureaucrats”—I shall later on say which side in
    this controversy tends to be bureaucratic. We all know that while
    Comrade Ryazanov may love a slogan, and must have one which is all
    but an expression of principle, it is not one of Comrade
    Tomsky’s many vices. I think, therefore, that it would be
    going a bit too far to challenge Comrade Tomsky to a battle of
    principles on this score (as Comrade Trotsky has done). I am
    positively astonished at this. One would have thought that we had
    grown up since the days when we all sinned a great deal in the way
    of factional, theoretical and various other
    disagreements—although we naturally did some good as
    well. It is time we stopped inventing and blowing up differences
    of principle and got down to practical work. I never knew that
    Tomsky was eminently a theoretician or that he claimed to be one;
    it may be one of his failings, but that is something else
    again. Tomsky, who has been working very smoothly with the trade
    union- movement, must in his position provide a reflection of this
    complex transition—whether he should do so consciously or
    unconsciously is quite another matter and I am not saying that he
    has always done it consciously—so that if something is
    hurting the mass, and they do not know what it is, and he does not
    know what it is (applause,laughter) but raises
    a howl, I say that is not a failing but should be put down to his
    credit. I am quite sure that Tomsky has many partial theoretical
    mistakes. And if we all sat down to a table and started
    thoughtfully writing resolutions or theses, we should correct them
    all; we might not even bother to do that because production work
    is more interesting than the rectifying of minute theoretical
    disagreements.

I come now to “industrial democracy”, shall I say,
    for Bukharin’s benefit. We all know that everyone has his
    weak points, that even big men have little weak spots, and this
    also goes for Bukharin. He seems to be incapable of resisting any
    little word with a flourish to it. He seemed to derive an almost
    sensuous pleasure from writing the resolution on industrial
    democracy at the Central Committee Plenum on December 7. But the
    closer I look at this “industrial democracy”, the more
    clearly I see that it is half-baked and theoretically false. It is
    nothing but a hodge-podge. With this as an example, let me say
    once again, at a Party meeting at least: “Comrade
    N. I. Bukharin, the Republic, theory and you yourself will benefit
    from less verbal extravagance.” (Applause.)
    Industry is indispensable. Democracy is a category proper only to
    the political sphere. There can be no objection to the use of this
    word in speeches or articles. An article takes up and clearly
    expresses one relationship and no more. But it is quite strange to
    hear you trying to turn this into a thesis, and to see you wanting
    to coin it into a slogan, uniting the “ayes” and the
    “nays”; it is strange to hear you say, like Trotsky,
    that the Party will have “to choose between two
    trends”. I shall deal separately with whether the Party must
    do any “choosing” and who is to blame for putting the
    Party in this position of having to “choose”. Things
    being what they are, we say: “At any rate, see that you
    choose fewer slogans, like ’industrial democracy’,
    which contain nothing but confusion and are theoretically
    wrong.” Both Trotsky and Bukharin failed to think out this
    term theoretically and ended up in confusion. “Industrial
    democracy” suggests things well beyond the circle of ideas
    with which they were carried away. They wanted to lay greater
    emphasis and focus attention on industry. It is one thing to
    emphasise something in an article or speech; it is quite another
    to frame it into a thesis and ask the Party to choose, and so I
    say: cast your vote against it, because it is confusion. Industry
    is indispensable, democracy is not. Industrial democracy breeds
    some utterly false ideas. The idea of one-man management was
    advocated only a little while ago. We must not make a mess of
    things and confuse people: how do you expect them to know when you
    want democracy, when one-man management, and when
    dictatorship. But on no account must we renounce dictatorship
    either—I hear Bukharin behind me growling: “Quite
    right.” (Laughter.Applause.)

But to go on. Since September we have been talking about
    switching from the principle of priority to that of equalisation,
    and we have said as much in the resolution of the all-Party
    conference, which was approved by the Central Committee.[4]The question is not an easy one,
    because we find that we have to combine equalisation with
    priority, which are incompatible. But after all we do have some
    knowledge of Marxism and have learned how and when opposites can
    and must be combined; and what is most important is that in the
    three and a half years of our revolution we have actually combined
    opposites again and again.

The question obviously requires thoughtfulness and
    circumspection. After all, we did discuss these questions of
    principle at those deplorable plenary meetings of the Central
    Committee[4b]—which yielded the groups of
    seven and eight, and Comrade Bukharin’s celebrated
    “buffer group”[6]—and we did
    establish that there was no easy transition from the priority
    principle to that of equalisation. We shall have to put in a bit
    of effort to implement the decision of the September
    Conference. After all, these opposite terms can be combined either
    into a cacophony or a symphony. Priority implies preference for
    one industry out of a group of vital industries because of its
    greater urgency. What does such preference entail? How great can
    it be? This is a difficult question, and I must say that it will
    take more than zeal to solve it; it may even take more than a
    heroic effort on the part of a man who is possibly endowed with
    many excellent qualities and who will do wonders on the right job;
    this is a very peculiar matter and calls for the correct
    approach. And so if we are to raise this question of priority and
    equalisation we must first of all give it some careful thought,
    but that is just what we fail to find in Comrade Trotsky’s
    work; the further he goes in revising his original theses, the
    more mistakes he makes. Here is what we find in his latest
    theses:

“The equalisation line should be pursued in the sphere ofconsumption, that is, the conditions of the working
    people’s existence as individuals. In the sphere ofproduction, the principle of priority will long remain
    decisive for us”. . . (thesis 41, p. 31 of Trotsky’s
    pamphlet).

This is a real theoretical muddle. It is all wrong. Priority
    is preference, but it is nothing without preference in
    consumption. If all the preference I get is a couple of ounces of
    bread a day I am not likely to be very happy. The preference part
    of priority implies preference in consumption as well. Otherwise,
    priority is a pipe dream, a fleeting cloud, and we are, after all,
    materialists. The workers are also materialists; if you say shock
    work, they say, let’s have the bread, and the clothes, and
    the beef. That is the view we now take, and have always taken, in
    discussing these questions time without number with reference to
    various concrete matters in the Council of Defence,[7]when one
    would say: “I’m doing shock work”, and would
    clamour for boots, and another: “I get the boots, otherwise
    your shock workers won’t hold out, and all your priority
    will fizzle out.”

We find, therefore, that in the theses the approach to
    equalisation and priority is basically wrong. What is more, it is
    a retreat from what has actually been achieved and tested in
    practice. We can’t have that; it will lead to no good.

Then there is the question of “coalescing “. The
    best thing to do about “coalescing” right now is to
    keep quiet. Speech is silver, but silence is golden. Why so? It is
    because we have got down to coalescing in practice; there is not a
    single large gubernia economic council, no major department of the
    Supreme Economic Council, the People’s Commissariat for
    Communications, etc., where something is not being coalesced in
    practice. But are the results all they should be? Ay,
    there’s the rub. Look at the way coalescence has actually
    been carried out, and what it has produced. There are countless
    decrees introducing coalescence in the various institutions. But
    we have yet to make a business-like study of our own practical
    experience; we have yet to go into the actual results of all this;
    we have yet to discover what a certain type of coalescence has
    produced in a particular industry, what happened when member X of
    the gubernia trade union council held post Y in the gubernia
    economic council, how many months he was at it, etc. What we have
    not failed to do is to invent a disagreement on coalescence as a
    principle, and make a mistake in the process, but then we have
    always been quick at that sort of thing; but we were not up to the
    mark when it came to analysing and verifying our own
    experience. When we have congresses of Soviets with committees not
    only on the application of the better-farming law in the various
    agricultural areas but also on coalescence and its results in the
    Saratov Gubernia flour-milling industry, the Petrograd metal
    industry, the Donbas coal industry, etc., and when these
    committees, having mustered the facts, declare: “We have
    made a study of so and so”, then I shall say: “Now we
    have got down to business, we have finally grown up.” But
    could anything be more erroneous and deplorable than the fact that
    we are being presented with “theses” splitting hairs
    over the principle of coalescence, after we have been at it for
    three years? We have taken the path of coalescence, and I am sure
    it was the right thing to do, but we have not yet made an adequate
    study of the results of our experience. That is why keeping quiet
    is the only common sense tactics on the question of
    coalescence.

A study must be made of practical experience. I have signed
    decrees and resolutions containing instructions on practical
    coalescence, and no theory is half so important as practice. That
    is why when I hear: “Let’s discuss
    ’coalescence’”, I say: “Let’s
    analyse what we have done.” There is no doubt that we have
    made many mistakes. It may well be that a great part of our
    decrees need amending. I accept that, for I am not in the least
    enamoured of decrees. But in that case let us have some practical
    proposals as to what actually has to be altered. That would be a
    business-like approach. That would not be a waste of time. That
    would not lead to bureaucratic projecteering But I find that that
    is exactly what’s wrong with Trotsky’s
    “Practical Conclusions”, Part VI of his pamphlet. He
    says that from one-third to one-half of the members of the All
    Russia Central Council of Trade Unions and the Presidium of the
    Supreme Eccnomic Council should serve on both bodies, and from
    one-half to two-thirds, on the collegiums, etc. Why so? No special
    reason, just “rule of thumb”. It is true, of course,
    that rule of thumb is frequently used to lay down similar
    proportions in our decrees, but then why is it inevitable in
    decrees? I hold no brief for all decrees as such and have no
    intention of making them appear better than they actually
    are. Quite often rule of thumb is used in them to fix such purely
    arbitrary proportions as one-half or one-third of the total number
    of members, etc. When a decree says that, it means: try doing it
    this way, and later on we shall assess the results of your
    “try out”. We shall later sort out the results. After
    sorting them out, we shall move on. We are working on coalescence
    and we expect to improve it because we are becoming more efficient
    and practical-minded.

But I seem to have lapsed into “production
    propaganda”. That can’t be helped. It is a question
    that needs dealing with in any discussion of the role of the trade
    unions in production.

My next question will therefore be that of production
    propaganda. This again is a practical matter and we approach it
    accordingly. Government agencies have already been set up to
    conduct production propaganda. I can’t tell whether they are
    good or had; they have to be tested and there’s no need for
    any “theses” on this subject at all.

If we take a general view of the part trade unions have to play
    in industry, we need not, in this question of democracy, go beyond
    the usual democratic practices. Nothing will come of such tricky
    phrases as “industrial democracy”, for they are all
    wrong. That is the first point. The second is production
    propaganda. The agencies are there. Trotsky’s theses deal
    with production propaganda. That is quite useless, because in this
    case theses are old hat. We do not know as yet whether the
    agencies are good or bad. But we can tell after testing them in
    action. Let us do some studying and polling. Assuming, let us say,
    that a congress has 10 committees with 10 men on each, let us ask:
    “You have been dealing with production propaganda, haven
    ’t you? What are the results?” Having made a study of
    this, we should reward those who have done especially well, and
    discard what has proved unsuccessful. We do have some practical
    experience; it may not be much but it is there; yet we are being
    dragged away from it and back to these “theses on
    principles”. This looks more like a
    “reactionary” movement than “trade
    unionism”.

There is then the third point, that of
    bonuses. Here is the role and task of the trade unions in
    production: distribution of bonusesin kind. A start on
    it has been made. Things have been set in motion. Five hundred
    thousand poods of grain had been allocated for the purpose, and
    one hundred and seventy thousand has been distributed. How well
    and how correctly, I cannot tell. The Council of People’s
    Commissars was told that they were not making a good job of this
    distribution, which turned out to be an additional wage rather
    than a bonus. This was pointed out by officials of the trade
    unions and the People’s Commissariat for Labour. We
    appointed a commission to look into the matter but that has not
    yet been done. One hundred and seventy thousand poods of grain has
    been given away, but this needs to be done in such a way as to
    reward those who display the heroism, the zeal, the talent, and
    the dedication of the thrifty manager, in a word, all the
    qualities that Trotsky extols. But the task now is not to extol
    this in theses but to provide the bread and the
    beef. Wouldn’t it be better, for instance, to deprive one
    category of workers of their beef and give it as a bonus to
    workers designated as “shock” workers? We do not
    renounce that kind of priority. That is a priority we need. Let us
    take a closer look at our practices in the application of
    priority.

The fourth point is disciplinary courts. I hope Comrade
    Bukharin will not take offence if I say that without disciplinary
    courts the role of the trade unions in industry, “industrial
    democracy “, is a mere trifle. But the fact is that there is
    nothing at all about this in your theses. “Great
    grief!” is therefore the only thing that can be said about
    Trotsky’s theses and Bukharin’s attitude, from the
    standpoint of principle, theory and practice.

I am confirmed in this conclusion when I say to myself: yours
    is not a Marxist approach to the question. This quite apart from
    the fact that there are a number of theoretical mistakes in the
    theses It is not a Marxist approach to the evaluation of the
    “role and tasks of the trade unions”, because such a
    broad subject cannot be tackled without giving thought to the
    peculiar political aspects of the present situation. After all,
    Comrade Bukharin and I did say in the resolution of the Ninth
    Congress of the R.C.P. on trade unions that politics is the most
    concentrated expression of economics.

If we analysed the current political situation, we might say
    that we were going through a transition period within a transition
    period. The whole of the dictatorship of the proletariat is a
    transition period, but we now have, you might say, a heap of new
    transition periods: the demobilisation of the army, the end of the
    war, the possibility of having a much longer breathing space in
    peace than before, and a more solid transition from the war front
    to the labour front. This—and this alone—is causing a
    change in the attitude of the proletarian class to the peasant
    class. What kind of change is it? Now this calls for a close
    examination, but nothing of the sort follows from your
    theses. Until we have taken this close look, we must learn to
    wait. The people are overweary, considerable stocks that had to be
    used for certain priority industries have been so used; the
    proletariat’s attitude to the peasantry is undergoing a
    change. The war weariness is terrible, and the needs have
    increased, but production has increased insufficiently or not at
    all. On the other hand, as I said in my report to the Eighth
    Congress of Soviets, our application of coercion was correct and
    successful whenever we had been able to back it up from the start
    with persuasion. I must say that Trotsky and Bukharin have
    entirely failed to take account of this very important
    consideration.

Have we laid a sufficiently broad and solid base of persuasion
    for all these new production tasks? No, indeed, we have barely
    started doing it. We have not yet made the masses a party to
    them. Now I ask you, can the masses tackle these new assignments
    right away? No, they cannot, because while there is now no need
    for special propaganda on the question of, say, whether Wrangel
    the landowner should be overthrown or whether any sacrifices
    should be spared for the purpose, we have just started to work on
    this question of the role of the trade unions in production, and I
    mean the business aspect of the matter and not the question of
    “principle”, the reasoning about “Soviet
    trade-unionism” and such like trifles; we have just set up
    the agency for production propaganda, but we have as yet no
    experience. We have introduced the payment of bonuses in kind, but
    we lack the experience. We have set up the disciplinary courts,
    but we are not yet aware of the results. Still, from the political
    standpoint it is the preparedness of the masses that is
    crucial. Has the question been prepared, studied, weighed, and
    considered from this angle? No, far from it. And that is a basic,
    deep-going and dangerous political mistake, because if ever there
    was need to act according to the rule of measuring your cloth
    seven times before cutting it once, it is in this question. We
    find instead that the cutting has been started in earnest without
    a single measure having been taken. We are told that “the
    Party must choose between two trends”, but the false slogan
    of “industrial democracy “ was invented without a
    single measuring.

We must try to understand the meaning of this slogan,
    especially in the present political situation, when the masses are
    confronted with bureaucratic practices in visual form, and when we
    have the question itself on the agenda. Comrade Trotsky says in
    his theses that on the question of workers’ democracy it
    remains for the Congress to “enter it unanimously in the
    record”. That is not correct. There is more to it than an
    entry in the record; an entry in the record fixes what has been
    fully weighed and measured, whereas the question of industrial
    democracy is far from having been fully weighed, tried and
    tested. Just think how the masses may interpret this slogan of
    “industrial democracy”.

“We, the rank and file who work among the masses, say
    that there is need for new blood, that things must be corrected
    and the bureaucrats ousted, and here you are beating about the
    bush, talking about getting on with production and displaying
    democracy in achieving success in production; we refuse to get on
    with production under such a bureaucratic set-up of central and
    other boards, we want a different one.” You have not given
    the masses a chance to discuss things, to see the point, and to
    think it over; you have not allowed the Party to gain fresh
    experience but are already acting in haste, overdoing it, and
    producing formulas which are theoretically false. Just think how
    this mistake will be further amplified by unduly zealous
    functionaries! A political leader is responsible not only for the
    quality of his leadership but also for the acts of those he
    leads. He may now and again be unaware of what they are about, he
    may often wish they had not done some thing, but the
    responsibility still falls on him.

I now come to the November 9 and December 7 plenary meetings of
    the Central Committee, which gave expression to all these mistakes
    in action, rather than in logical categories, premises and
    theoretical reasoning. This threw the Centrai Committee into
    confusion; it is the first time this has happened in our
    Party’s history, in time of revolution, and it is
    dangerous. The crux was that there was a division, there was the
    “buffer” group of Bukharin, Preobrazhensky and
    Serebryakov, which did the most harm and created the most
    confusion.

You will recall the story of Glavpolitput[8]and
    Tsektran.[9]The resolution of the Ninth Congress
    of the R.C.P. in April 1920 said that Glavpolitput was being set
    up as a “temporary” institution, and that conditions
    should be brought back to normal “as soon as
    possible”. In September you read, “Return to normal
    conditions”.[9b]The plenary meeting was held in
    November (November 9), and Trotsky came up with his theses and
    ideas about trade-unionism. How ever fine some of his points about
    production propaganda may be, he should have been told that all
    this was neither here nor there, quite beside the mark, and a step
    backward it is something the C.C. should not be dealing with at
    present. Bukharin says: “It is very good.” It may be
    very good, but that is no answer to the question. After a heated
    debate, a resolution is adopted by 10 to 4 saying in a polite and
    comradely way that Tsektran has itself “already got down to
    . . . strengthening and developing methods of proletarian
    democracy within the union”. It adds that Tsektran must
    “take an active part in the general work of the All-Russia
    Central Council of Trade Unions, being incorporated in it on an
    egual footing with other trade union bodies”.

What is the gist of the Central Committee’s decision? It
    is obviously this: “Comrades of Tsektran! You must do more
    than go through the motions of carrying out Congress and
    C.C. decisions, you must actually do so to help all trade unions
    by your work, wipe out every trace of red tape, favouritism,
    arrogance, the we-are-better-than-you attitude, and boasts of
    being richer and getting more aid.”

We then get down to brass tacks. A commission is set up, and
    the names of its members are published. Trotsky walks out, refuses
    to serve on the commission, and disrupts its work. What are his
    reasons? There is only one. Lutovinov is apt to play at
    opposition. That is true, and that also goes for Osinsky. Frankly
    speaking, it is not a pleasant game. But do you call that a
    reason? Osinsky was making an excellent job of the seed
    campaign. The thing to do was to work with him, in spite of his
    “opposition campaign”, for this business of disrupting
    the work of a commission is bureaucratic, un-Soviet, un-socialist,
    incorrect and politically harmful. Such methods are doubly
    incorrect and politically harmful at a time when there is need to
    separate the wheat from the chaff within the
    “opposition”. When Osinsky conducts an
    “opposition campaign”, I tell him: “This is a
    harmful campaign”, but it is a pleasure to see him conduct
    the seed campaign. I shall not deny that, like Ishchenko and
    Shlyapnikov, Lutovinov is making a mistake in his
    “opposition campaign”, but that is no reason to
    disrupt the work of a commission.

What did the commission in fact signify? It signified
    transition to practical work from intellectualist talk about
    sterile disagreements. What the commission was due to discuss and
    deal with was production propaganda, bonuses, and disciplinary
    courts. It was then that Comrade Bukharin, the head of the
    “buffer group”, together with Preobrazhensky and
    Serebryakov, seeing the Central Committee dangerously divided, set
    out to create a buffer, one that I find difficult to describe in
    parliamentary terms. If I could draw cartoons as well as Comrade
    Bukharin does, I would depict him as a man pouring a bucket of
    kerosene on the flames, and give the following caption:
    “Buffer kerosene”. Comrade Bukharin wanted to create
    something, and his intentions were no doubt most sincere and
    entirely in the “buffer” spirit. But the buffer failed
    to materialise; the upshot was that he failed to take account of
    the political situation and, what is more, made some theoretical
    mistakes.

Should all such disputes have been brought up for broad
    discussion? Was it worth going into these trifles? Was it worth
    wasting the few precious weeks before a Party congress? Wecould
    have used the timo to analyse and study the question of bonuses,
    disciplinary courts and coalescence. Those are the questions we
    could have given a practical solution to in the
    C.C. commission. If Comrade Bukharin wished to create a buffer,
    instead of giving a display of barking up the wrong tree, he
    should have demanded and insisted that Comrade Trotsky remained on
    the commission. If he had said and done that, we should have been
    on the right track, with the commission looking into the practical
    aspects of such things as one-man management, democracy,
    appointees, etc.

But to go on. By December (the December 7 Plenary Meeting), we
    were already faced with this flare-up of the watermen, which
    intensified the conflict, and as a result there were now eight
    votes in the Central Committee to our seven. Comrade Bukharin, in
    an effort to bring about a “reconciliation” through
    the use of his “buffer”, hastily wrote the
    “theoretical” part of the December plenum’s
    resolution, but with the commission a shambles, nothing, of
    course, could come of it.

Where did Glavpolitput and Tsektran err? Certainly not in their
    use of coercion; that goes to their credit. Their mistake was that
    they failed to switch to normal trade union work at the right time
    and without conflict, as the Ninth Congress of the
    R.C.P. required; they failed to adapt themselves to the trade
    unions and help them by meeting them on an equal footing. Heroism,
    zeal, etc., are the positive side of military experience; red-tape
    and arrogance are the negative side of the experience of the worst
    military types. Trotsky’s theses, whatever his intentions,
    do not tend to play up the best, but the worst in military
    experience. It must be borne in mind that a political leader is
    responsible not only for his own policy but also for the acts of
    those he leads.

The last thing I want to tell you about—something I
    called myself a fool for yesterday—is that I had altogether
    overlooked Comrade Rudzutak’s theses. His weak point is that
    he does not speak in ringing tones; he is not an impressive or
    eloquent speaker. He is liable to be overlooked. Unable to attend
    the meetings yesterday, I went through my material and found a
    printed leaflet issued for the Fifth All-Russia Trade Union
    Conference, which was-held from November 2 to 6, 1920.[11]It is
    called:The Tasks of the Trade Unions in Production. Let
    me read it to you, it is not long. 

      Fifth All-Russia Trade Union Conference

      The tasks of the trade unions in production

      (Theses Of Comrade Rudzutak’s Report)

1. Immediately after the October Revolution, the trade unions
    proved to bealmost the onlybodies which, while
    exercising workers’control, were able and bound to
    undertake the work of organising andmanaging
    production. In that early period of the Soviet power, no
    state apparatus for the management of the national economy had yet
    been set up, while sabotage on the part of factory owners and
    senior technicians brought the working class squarely up against
    the task of safeguarding industry and getting the whole of the
    country’s economic apparatus back into normal running
    order.

2. In the subsequent period of the Supreme Economic
    Council’s work, when a considerable part of it consisted in
    liquidating private enterprises and organising state management to
    run them,the trade unions carried on this work jointly and
    side by side with the stateeconomic managementagencies.

Thisparallel set-upwas explained and justified by
    the weakness of the state agencies; historically it was vindicated
    by the establishment of full contact between the trade unions and
    the economic management agencies.

3.The centre of gravity in the management of industryand the drafting of a production programmeshifted to these
    agenciesas a result of their administration, the gradual
    spread of their control over production and management and
    the-co-ordination of the several parts. In view of this, the work
    of the trade unions in organising production was reduced toparticipation in forming the collegiumsof chief
    administrations, central boards, and factory managements.

4. At the present time, we are once again squarely faced with
    the question of establishing the closest possible ties between the
    economic agencies of the Soviet Republic and the trade unions, for
    the best use must be made of every working individual, and the
    whole mass of producers must be induced to take a conscious part
    in production, for the state apparatus of economic management,
    gradually gaining in size and complexity, has been transformed
    into a huge bureaucratic machine which is out of all proportion to
    the scale of industry, and is inevitably impelling the trade
    unions to take direct part in organising production not only
    through its men in the economic agencies but also as an organised
    whole.

5. While the Supreme Economic Council’s point of
    departure in drawing up an overall production programme isthe
    availability of the material elements of production(raw
    materials, fuel, the state of machinery, etc.), the trade unions
    must look at itfrom the standpoint of organising labourfor the tasks of production and its best use. Therefore, the
    overallproduction programme,in whole and in
    part,must be drawn up with the participation of the
    trade unionsin order to combine the use of the material
    resources of production and manpower in the best possible way.

6. Only if the whole mass of those engaged in productionconsciously take a handin establishing real labour
    discipline, fighting deserters from the labour front, etc., can
    these tasks be fulfilled.Bureaueratic methods and orderswill not do; it must be brought home to each participant in
    production that his production tasks are appropriate and
    important; that each must take a hand not only in fulfilling his
    assignments, but also play an intelligent part in correcting any
    technical and organisational defects in the sphere of
    production.

The tasks of the trade unions in this sphere are
    tremendous. They must teachtheir members in each shopand in each factory toreact to and take account of all
    defects in the use of manpower arising from improper handlingof technical means or unsatisfactory management.The sum total
    of the experience gained by separateenterprises and industry
    as a whole must be used to combat red-tape, bureaucratic practices
    and carelessness.

7. In order to lay special emphasis on the importance of these
    production tasks, they must be organisationally worked into
    current operations. As theeconomic departmentsof the
    trade unions, which are being set up in pursuance of the decision
    of the Third All-Russia Congress, extend their activity, they must
    gradually explain and define the nature of all trade union
    work. Thus, in the present social conditions, when all of
    production is geared to the satisfaction of the working
    people’s needs,wage rates and bonuses must be closely
    tied in with and must depend on the extent to which the production
    plan is fulfilled. Bonuses in kind and partial payment of
    wages in kind must be gradually transformed into asystem of
    workers’ supplywhich depends on the level of labour
    productivity.

8. Trade union work on these lines would, on the one hand, put
    an end to the existence ofparallel bodies(political
    departments,etc.) and, on the other, restore the
    close ties between the masses and the economic management
    agencies.

9. After the Third Congress, the trade unions largely failed
    to carry out their programme for participation in economic
    construction owing, first, to themilitary conditions,
    and second, to theirorganisational weaknessand
    isolation from the administrative and practical work of the
    economic bodies.

10. In view of this, the trade unions should set themselves
    the following immediate practical tasks: a) the most active
    participation in solving production and management problems; b)
    direct participation, with the respective economic agencies,in setting up competentadministrative bodies; c) careful
    consideration of the varioustypes of management bodies,
    and their influence on production; d) unfailing participation in
    working out and laying down economicplansand production
    programmes; e)organisation of labourin accordance with
    the economic priorities; f) development of an extensive
    organization for productionagitation and propaganda.

11. The economic departments of thetrade unionsand
    of their organisations must be actually transformed into powerful
    and expeditious levers for the trade unions’ systematic
    participation in organising production.

12. In the matter of providing workers with steady material
    supplies, the trade unions must shift theirinfluence onto the
    distribution bodies of the Commissariat for Food, both local
    and central, taking a practical and business-like part and
    exercisingcontroIin all the distributive bodies, and
    paying special attention to the activity of central and guberniaworkers’ supply commissions.

13. In view of the fact that the narrow departmental interests
    of some chief administrations, central boards, etc., have plunged
    the so-called “priority” into a state of utter
    confusion, the trade unions must everywhere uphold the real order
    of economic priorities and review the existing system so as to
    determine them in accordance with the actual importance of the
    various industries and the availability of material resources in
    the country.

14. Special attention must be given to the so-called model
    group of factories to help them set an example through the
    organisation of efficient management, labour discipline and trade
    union activities.

15. In labour organisation, apart from the introduction of a
    harmonious wage-rate system and the overhaul of output rates, the
    trade unions should take a firm hand in fighting the variousforms of labour desertion(absenteeism, lateness,
    etc.). The disciplinary courts, which have not received due
    attention until now, must be turned into a real means of combating
    breaches of proletarian labour discipline.

16. The economic departments must be entrusted with the
    fulfilment of these tasks and also the drafting of a practical
    plan for production propaganda and a number of measures to improve
    the economic condition of the workers. It is necessary, therefore,
    to authorise the economic department of the All-Russia Central
    Council of Trade Unions to call a special All-Russia Conference of
    Economic Departments in the near future to discuss the practical
    problems of economic construction in connection with the world of
    state economic agencies.

I hope you see now why I called myself names. There you have a
    platform, and it is very much better than the one Comrade Trotsky
    wrote after a great deal of thinking, and the one Comrade Bukharin
    wrote (the December 7 Plenum resolution) without any thinking at
    all. All of us members of the Central Committee who have been out
    of touch with the trade Union movement for many years would profit
    from Comrade Rudzutak’s experience, and this also goes for
    Comrade Trotsky and Comrade Bukharin. The trade unions have
    adopted this platform.

We all entirely forgot about the disciplinary courts, but
    “industrial democracy”, without bonuses in kind or
    disciplinary courts, is nothing but empty talk.

I make a comparison between Rudzutak’s theses and those
    submitted by Trotsky to the Central Committee. At the end of
    thesis 5, I read:

“. . a reorganisation of the unions must be started right
    away, that is, a selection of functionaries must be above all made
    from precisely that angle”. . . .

There you have an example of the real bureaucratic approach:
      Trotsky and Krestinsky selecting the trade union
      “functionaries”!

Let me say this once again: here you have an explanation of
    Tsektran’s mistake. It was not wrong to use pressure; that
    goes to its credit. It made the mistake of failing to cope with
    the general tasks of all the trade unions, of failing to act
    itself and to help all the trade unions to employ the disciplinary
    comrades’ courts more correctly, swiftly and
    successfully. When I read about the disciplinary courts in Comrade
    Rudzutak’s theses it occurred to me that there might be a
    decree on this matter. And in fact there was. It is theRegulationsGoverning Workers’ Disciplinary
    Comrades’ Courts, issued on November 14, 1919
    (Collection of StatutesNo. 537).

The trade unions have the key role in these courts I
    don’t know how good these courts are, how well they
    function, and whether they always function. A study of our own
    practical experience would be a great deal more useful than
    anything Comrades Trotsky and Bukharin have written.

Let me end by summing up everything there is on the question. I
    must say that it was a great mistake to put up these disagreements
    for broad Party discussion and the Party Congress. It was a
    political mistake. We should have had a business-like discussion
    in the commission, and only there, and would have in that case
    moved forward; as it is we are sliding back, and shall keep
    sliding back to abstract theoretical propositions for several
    weeks, instead of dealing with the problem in a business-like
    manner. Personally, I am sick and tired of it, and quite apart
    from my illness, it would give me great pleasure to get away from
    it all. I am prepared to seek refuge anywhere.

The net result is that there are a number of theoretical
    mistakes in Trotsky’s and Bukharin’s theses: they
    contain a number of things that are wrong in
    principle. Politically, the whole approach to the matter is
    utterly tactless. Comrade Trotsky’s “theses” are
    politically harmful. The sum and substance of his policy is
    bureaucratic harassment of the trade unions. Our Party Congress
    will, I am sure, condemn and reject it. (Prolonged,stormy applause.)

[1]Lenin’s first speech to Party activists in the discussion of
    the role and tasks of the trade unions in socialist construction
    was delivered at the Bolshoi Theatre on December 30, 1920.

Trotsky had started the discussion in the
    Communist group of the Fifth All-Russia Trade Union Conference on
    November 3 with his call “to tighten the screws of War
    Communism” as opposed to the Party’s line to stimulate
    democratic activity in the trade unions.

The disagreements turned “on the
    different approach to the mass, the way of winning it over, and
    keeping in touch with it” (Lenin). The
    disagreements in the group were brought before the Central
    Committee Plenary Meeting. But Trotsky’s December 24 speech
    before the delegates of the Eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets
    and trade union activists carried the issue outside the Central
    Committee. On December 25, he published his views in a
    pamphlet.

Lenin was against any discussion, believing
    that it distracted the Party’s attention and forces from the
    immediate tasks of fighting the economic dislocation and the
    famine. In his-speeches and articles—The Party CrisisandOnce Again on the Trade Unions, the Current
    Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin—he
    put forward and developed a number of important principles
    underlying the trade unions’ role in the dictatorship of the
    proletariat and their tasks in socialist construction.

The discussion lasted more than two months. The
    overwhelming majority of the Party organisations approved
    Lenin’s platform and rejected the opposition’s. The
    results of the discussion were summed up at the Tenth Congress of
    the Party on March 8-16, 1921.

[2]On its agenda were the current tasks of economic construction and
    the question of the trade union movement. It defined the
    short-term economic tasks and stressed the need for the trade
    unions’ active participation in socialist construction. It
    adopted the following resolutions: “The Current Tasks of
    Econormic Construction” and “The Trade Unions and
    Their Organisation”. SeeK.P.S.S. v rezolutsiakh i
    resheniakh syezdov, konferentsi i plenumov TsK(The
    C.P.S.U. in the Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses,
    Conferences and C.C Plenary Meetings, Part 1, 1954, pp. 477-90,
    490-94).

[3]The reference is to the Eighth All-Russia
    Congress of Soviets of Workers’, Peasants’, Red Army
    and Cossack Deputies held in Moscow on December 22-29, 1920. It
    was attended by 2,537 delegates, the greatest number ever. Of them
    1,728 had voice and vote, and 809, voice only. Of the total number
    of delegates 91.7 per cent were Communists; 2.7, Communist
    sympathisers; 3.9, non-party people; 0.3, Mensheviks; 0.3,
    Bundists; 0.15, Left S.R.s; 0.15, anarchists, and 0.8, from other
    parties.

The Congress met at a time when the war against
    the foreign intervention and internal counter-revolution was
    coming to a end, and when the economic front stood out as
    “the main and most important one” (Lenin). On its agenda there were the following questions, the chief of
    which had been discussed beforehand by the Communist group: report
    on the activity of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee and
    the Council of People’s Commissars, electrification of
    Russia; rehabilitation of industry and transport; development of
    agricultural production and promotion of farming; efficiency of
    Soviet establishments and the struggle against bureaucratic
    practices. These problems were thrashed out in three sections:
    industry, agriculture and Soviet administration.

Lenin guided much of the work of the
    Congress. At the plenary meeting on December 22, he gave a report
    on the activity of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee and
    the Council of People’s Commissars, and on December 23, he
    summed up the debate. He spoke six times at the Communist group
    meetings on December 21, 22, 24 and 27 on the question of
    concessions and the draft law on measures to consolidate and
    develop peasant farming. By an overwhelming majority, the Congress
    adopted a resolution on Lenin’s report, approving the
    government’s activity, and rejected a draft resolution
    motioned by the other delegates.

The Congress adopted a plan for the
    electrification of the country (GOELRO), worked out on
    Lenin’s initiative and instructions. This was the first
    long-range economic plan of the Soviet state and Lenin called it
    “the second Party Programme”. He also wrote the
    resolution on Krzhizhanovsky’s report.

Another major question on the agenda was a
    draft law on measures to consolidate and develop peasant farming,
    which had been adopted by the Council of People’s Commissars
    on December 14, 1920. Lenin stressed that the law was “a
    kind of a focus around which hundreds of decrees and bills of the
    Soviet power were grouped”. Lenin took part in the
    discussion of its principal clauses by the non-Party peasant
    delegates to the Congress at a special meeting on December 22, and
    by the Communist group on December 24 and 27. The draft law was
    adopted unanimously.

The Congress passed a comprehensive resolution
    to improve and reorganise the entire Soviet apparatus as required
    by the transition to peaceful economic construction. It regulated
    relations between central and local organs of power and
    administration. The Congress also discussed the reorganisation of
    the whole system of economic management in accordance with the new
    economic tasks, and approved a new statute of the Council of
    Labour and Defence.

It instituted the Order of theRed Banner
    of Labouras an award for dedication, initiative, efficiency
    and hard work in solving economic tasks.

[4]The reference is to the resolution of the Ninth All-Russia
    Conference of the R.C.P.(B.), “The Current Tasks of Party
    Organisation”. SeeK.P.S.S. v rezolutsiakh. . . (The C.P.S.U. in the Resolutions and Decisions of
    Congresses, Conferences and C.C. Plenary Meetings, Part 1, 1954,
    pp. 506-12).

[4b]The reference is to the November and
    December plenary meeting of the Central Committee in 1920. For the
    text of their resolutions seePravdaNo. 255 of November
    13, and No. 281 of December 14, and alsoIzvestia of the C.C.,
    R.C.P.[5]No. 26 of December 20.

[5]Izvestiaof the Central Committee of the Russian
      Communist Party was an information organ dealing with Party
      problems. It was published under a resolution of the Eighth
      Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) as a weekly supplement toPravdafrom May 28, 1919, and as an independent organ
      from October 1920.

In 1929, it was transformed into a fortnightly,Partiinoye Stroitelstvo(Party Construction),
    and in June 1946 renamedPartiinaya Zhizn(Party
    Life).

[6]The “buffer group” took shape during the
    trade union discussion in 1920-21. It was headed by N. I. Bukharin
    and included Y. Larin, Y. A. Preobrazhensky, L. P. Serebryakov,
    G. Y. Sokolnikov, V. N. Yakovleva and others. They tried to
    reconcile the differences between Lenin and Trotsky’s views,
    acting as a “buffer” in disagreements on the question
    of the role and tasks of the trade unions. In fact Bukharin
    attacked Lenin and defended Trotsky.

Lenin characterised the “buffer”
    group and its anti-Party views in his article, “The Party
    Crisis”, in the pamphlet,Once Again on the Trade
    Unions, the Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and
    Bukharin, and elsewhere.

[7]The Council of Workers’ and Peasants’
      Defencewas set up by the All-Russia Central Executive
      Committee on November 30, 1918, to implement its September 2,
      1918 decree which proclaimed the Soviet Republic a military
      camp. Lenin was appointed its Chairman. It was vested with
      extraordinary powers in mobilising the resources of the Soviet
      state for defence in that exceptionally difficult period.

The Council was the Republic’s chief
    military-economic and planning centre during the intervention and
    Civil War and also controlled the activity of the Revolutionary
    Military Council and other military organs. Its decrees were
    binding on all Soviet citizens, as well as on central and local
    agencies. Early in April 1920, it was reorganised into the Council
    of Labour and Defence (C.L.D.) (Soviet Truda i
    Oborony—STO), and under a decision of the Eighth
    All-Russia Congress of Soviets in December 1920 it began to
    operate as a government commission responsible for co-ordinating
    the work of all economic departments. It was abolished in
    1937.

[8]Glavpolitput—the Chief Political Department of the
    People’s Commissariat for Communications—was formed as
    a provisional organ under the direct leadership of the
    Party’s Central Committee in February 1919, and in January
    1920 it was renamed the Chief Political Administration. It took
    extraordinary measures to rehabilitate the railways that had been
    ruined in the imperialist war and the Civil War, to improve Party
    and political work among railway workers, and to strengthen and
    stimulate the activity of the railwaymen’s trade union and
    make it an instrument for the further development of the
    railways. It introduced military discipline on the railways to
    gear them to the war effort. The measures effected by Glavpolitput
    saved the railways from utter ruin, but produced bureaucratic and
    undemocratic practices in the trade unions and a tendency to lose
    touch with the masses.

It was abolished by a Central Committee
    decision on December 7, 1920, at the end of the Civil War and the
    start of peaceful development.

[9]Tsektran—the Central Committee of the Joint Trade
    Union of Rail and Water Transport Workers. In September 1920, the
    two unions were merged to set up a strong centralised
    administration capable of tackling the tasks of rapidly
    rehabilitating transport, whose stoppages tended to paralyse the
    national economy. Its extraordinary powers and military methods of
    work, which sprang from the enormity of the tasks before it, bred
    bureaucratic practices, the appointments system, administration by
    injunction, etc. The plenary meetings of the C.C. on November 8
    and December 7, 1920, condemned Tsektran’s methods and
    adopted a decision to incorporate it into the general system of
    the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions on a par with other
    unions. Tsektrall was advised to change its methods, develop trade
    union democracy, make all trade union bodies elective, reduce the
    appointments system, etc. The First All-Russia Congress of
    Transport Workers in March 1921 called by the Central Committee of
    the Party expelled those communists who opposed this reform from
    the Tsektran leadership and outlined new methods of work.

[9b]SeeIzvestia of the C.C., R.C.P.No. 26, p. 2, the Resolution of the September Plenum of the C.C.,
    Paragraph 3, which said: “The C.C. further believes that
    there has been a great improvement in the grave situation in the
    transport workers’ unions, which produced Glavpolitput and
    Politvod,[10]as temporary levers for assisting and
    organising the work. Therefore, incorporation of these
    organisations in the union, as union agencies being adapted to and
    absorbed by the union apparatus, can and must now
    proceed.”

[10]Politvod—the Chief Political Administration of
    Water Transport of the People’s Commissariat for
    Communications—was set up inApril 1920 as an agency of
    Glavpolitput to carry on political education among the workers and
    exercise political control over the technical and administrative
    personnel; to put water transport on its feet as soon as possible;
    to stimulate higher productivity and improve discipline. It was
    dissolved in December 1920.

[11]The Party wanted the trade unions’ work reorganised in
    accordance with the tasks of peaceful socialist construction,
    democracy developed and military methods of administration
    abolished. This was opposed by Trotsky, who demanded, at the
    Communist group meeting on November 3, a “shake-up” of
    the trade unions. He wanted “the screws tightened” and
    the trade unions governmentalised immediately. He disagreed on the
    “approach to the mass, the way of winning it over, and
    keeping in touch with it”. His speech started the Party
    discussion on the trade unions, but the Communist delegates
    rejected his demands, for their realisation would have abolished
    the trade unions and undermined the dictatorship of the
    proletariat. That is why his theses were discussed by the Party
    Central Committee. At the November 8 C.C. Plenary Meeting, Lenin
    came out with his own theses which, when put to the vote, won 8
    votes, as against 7 for Trotsky’s.